The present invention relates generally to energy efficiency across the data center, and more particularly to provisioning of data using energy-efficient methods.
Energy efficiency across the entire data center is becoming a top concern for corporations around the world. This problem requires consideration of all energy efficiency components of the data center, from component levels through server and system levels, and concluding with the complete data center. At the system level, storage devices are an extremely important part of the equation, which needs to be analyzed. Disk systems can require substantial amounts of power to operate and cool, and in many cases, can require more power than the server itself.
Data can be stored in different ways and in different formats. Currently, one of the most popular ways of storing and managing data is with the use of a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). FIG. 1 illustrates this type of system. The RDBMS 10 stores data in data files 12 on disks 14. The data is further organized into tablespaces and tables 16 holding similar or unique sets of data. Clients/users 18 access this data and conduct their day-to-day business operations on this data. The user queries request data to be read from database 10. Data must be retrieved from data files 12 on disks 14 and transferred into the memory 20 of the database system as data blocks 22. Arrow 21 shows the transfer of data from disks 14 to data blocks 22. The data is then accessed by the user 18. If another client/user requests a different set of data and the memory is not able to hold or accommodate both sets of data, then the older data blocks 24 are swapped back (shown by arrow 25) to disks 14 to allow space for new data from disks 14 to be deposited into memory 20. These operations consume Central Processor (CP/CPU) 26 and Input/Output (I/O) resources, which consume a large amount of power. This constant movement of data back and forth from memory to disks consumes power and exhausts system resources.
It is a primary object of the invention to provide a method and system for reducing power and energy consumption by large database systems. It is another object of the invention to provide an efficient method and system for moving data from a low energy-efficient system to a high energy-efficient system. It is a further object of the invention to provide a method and system for synchronizing provisioned data with source data. It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method and system for deleting provisioned data after it is no longer being accessed.